Earwigs… I did not know what an earwig was until I recently took it upon myself, once and for all, to identify the ominous looking insects that have been inviting themselves into my house each year, at this time of year – for the past several years.
Finally learning what they are did not improve their appearance either: long slim body, short leathery wings that look like little vests put on backwards, and a tail that resembles pincer-like forceps that look like they could inflict more pain than a pinch from my little sister. Supposedly they are harmless – unless you sit bare-assed on one (they are attracted to dampness; another good reason for men to lift the toilet seat – and maybe leave it up), or if you handle one long enough to anger it. I recoil every time I see one; Claudia yells, “There’s another one of those things!” followed by, “Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”
I’m only dwelling on earwigs now because they have impacted my life so much every time they move in; kind of like the friends or relatives that come to stay a while, but you would rather they go someplace else. If nothing else, the toilet paper and water consumption has increased significantly. It’s not because these alien looking things come out at night and scare the number-two out of us (I’m not sure about Claudia; she may have scorched her shorts a few times). It’s because every time I hear the ‘There’s- another- one- of- those- things-kill-it-kill-it-kill-it’ alarm, I have to rip off one or two squares, snatch up the crusty little critter, roll it up into a spherical shroud about the size of a marble, and then send it on a watery funereal cruise down the sewer system beneath the streets of my home town. All of this trouble just to prevent one of these things from crawling in our ears backwards and eating its way through to the other side.
It’s strange how ones cranial contents behave sometimes; at least mine anyway. Now when I see an earwig, and after I have recovered from the involuntary recoil, I think of Charles Dickens. Mr. Dickens must have had a thing for earwigs because he tossed a few in several of his novels; Dombey and Son, The Life and Times of Nicholas Nickleby, and I especially like the reference in Great Expectations:
‘What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I looked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what a number of blue-bottle flies from the butchers’, and earwigs from the market, and grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of them ever tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls on my face – a disagreeable turn of thought, suggesting other and more objectionable approaches up my back.’
This is kind of how I feel when I wander into the bathroom in the wee hours. As I return to my bed with chills running up my back, I shake, tremble, wipe my face, and flap my boxers – not out of fear, but to shake off any beady-headed hitchhikers that are hoping to sneak into my nice warm bed.
What scares me is the possibility of Claudia awakening in the middle of the night to the welcoming stare of one of these miscreant insects who has been lying in wait on her pillow.
Grampy Lash 